Oh goody... wait until a few old CReW dawgs reply to this! I suspect that we will see some pretty harrowing stories which will close with: "Just because we got away with it doesn't mean that it is a good idea....Don't try this at home"!"

Regarding landing a downplane.... I suggest that you convince an old CReW dawg to take you on a downplane. I think the answer to your question will become VERY obvious. Of course, then you will owe

And here's a "lots of dollars" question: What altitude is "too late to cutaway from a downplane"?

First one is easy. Probably not unless you are extremely well-versed in CRW, or extremely lucky. A true downplane is travelling at 80 mph straight into the ground.

The second one is a bit trickier, because I believe getting rid of a true downplane would be a huge priority since you are flying straight into the ground. Any glancing blow will diminish the forces brought to your body, so my answer would be, "Until I hit dirt."

I (and many others) have successfully broken off from planned downplanes at under two hundred feet and I would venture to guess some were closer to a hundred feet. So I would look to fight a two-out downplane into a side-by-side or chop it until something stopped me.

I'm with Top on this one. Landing a Down Plane is a life altering incident. I'm of the belief that chopping a downplane leaves little chance for any kind of canopy entanglements. If you ever see CRW Dawgs releasing from them, the canopies can't fly apart fast enough.

There are several threads already on this, including one currently in the incidents forums.

And here's a "lots of dollars" question: What altitude is "too late to cutaway from a downplane"?

I have seen exactly ONE instance where a jumper lived through a one-man downplane. It was a military HALO jump on St. Mere Eglise dropzone on Fort Bragg. The jumper was doing a combat equipment jump out of a UH-60, never got stable, and pulled just as his FF2 military AAD fired. The guy never even noticed his reserve trailing behind him until like 800 feet when it came out of the freebag, inflated, and turned down. The guy didn't know what was up and pulled full brakes on his MC4 main which put him into a sort of 45 degree "drag-plane" configuration with his rucksack dangling below him 200 of us watched the whole thing and we were stunned when he stood up after the crash. The only thing that saved the guy was the fact that he was in superb shape, had TWO 370 square foot canopies over his head (sort of) and the fact that he had his main toggles burried.

No, it's never too late to chop a downplane, period, assuming the canopies are NOT entangled BUT, there's a better what to deal with it. CRW demo guys have known forever that it's very easy to transition from a stack to a side-by-side, to a downplane and then back to a siide-by-side. There is no reason an individual jumper cannot do the same in a two-out situation when his/her life depends on it. In that case, (assuming entangled canopies that one cannot cutaway) the jumper has the rest of his life to keep BOTH canopies over his head until landing/impact in order to survive. It's not that big a deal, really. To do so, just pull on the inside-rear riser of one of the canopies in order to get it back overhead.

I've been jumping 31 years, have been an instructor for 29 of those, and do this full-time. I've read every book, every report, and have seen both the good and the bad ways to address this. Take that advice anyway you like.

I would never advise trying to land a downplane. Ouch! That being said about ten years ago I did a solo downplane on a tertiary-cutaway rig. I downplaned a triathlon 99 and a lightning 113. I can say that the camera guy ( loaded at 1.3?) didnt have the slightest problem staying with me when both sets of brakes were stowed. The descent rate wasn't too crazy. Once brakes were unstowed however, I left him in the dust and sped up incredibly....

The FF2 is a main-mounted AAD. Barring a broken closing loop, the only way his reserve came out is if he pulled the reserve handle himself. If the reserve was trailing and didn't come out of its freebag until 800 feet, that tells me that the main canopy was the primary canopy for the majority of his flight. For your story to make sense, he must have fallen through FF2 firing altitude, the main became "mostly" inflated, and then he manually fired his reserve without pulling the cutaway pillow. As the reserve was launching, the main finished doing its thing, so there was no longer sufficient speed for the reserve to finish its deployment (until 800 feet). Sounds like the guy did pretty much nothing right (except walk away). Don't get me wrong - I can absolutely see it going down like this - I see jumpers do the wrong thing every day.

Given a little bit of altitude, I fully support a recommendation to steer an individual downplane into a side-by-side. Bound to be a more survivable landing than a downplane.

I've been jumping freefall for (only) 17 years, have been an instructor for (only) 13 of those, and am a parachute rigger (military - 21 years and counting, FAA - 15 years and counting).

The French Federation has a theory about that. Take the 4 toggles and pull them. it would make the trailing edges go together, and have your canopies act as a big "round". I call BS on that one. But I might be wrong.

Oh we had a guy crash/landing a downplane a couple of years ago. The whambulance guys were very surprised to have to pick someone up FROM the cemetary

The French Federation has a theory about that. Take the 4 toggles and pull them. it would make the trailing edges go together, and have your canopies act as a big "round". I call BS on that one. But I might be wrong.

I never heard that. Do you have a link or something ? The "official" advice that I have is to keep the dominated canopy with brakes stowed in case of a "2 out" configuration.

I think the 4 toggles thing sounds more like a thought experiment, as a last ditch thing before hitting the ground. It still seems better to try to turn one canopy sharply to break the downplane towards a side by side.

I think that if I ended up in a downplane so stupid low I couldn't cutaway, I would try to do a deep flare on one of the canopies to drag plane the other. I suspect that that descent rate would be slower than a drag plane.

I would defer to people with more knowledge than I, but why would you add a chaotic event ( canopy stall) to an unstable environment? Wouldn't the stalled canopy run the risk of entanglement with the flying canopy?

@ Ken Saylor: I misspoke: it was an AR2 mounted on the reserve of an MC4 system. I worked at USAJFKSWC though every mode that that POS was configured for. This incident was a combination of a low pull and a high AR2 fire (which were VERY common early on). Does that clear it up for you? The point of the story was that we were fascinated to see this guy get up and walk away from it.

As stated up thread, get some CRW experience!!! You'll learn/experience how to move canopies around from bi-plane to side-by-side, side-by-side to down plane, and you can even work from down plane to side-by side.

There is no replacement for experience. If I ever find myself in a two out down plane, I'll be better equipped to deal with it because I've been there, done that.

Safely, meh, alive, yes. I have video somewhere of one of my former SL students (a fitness instructor so quite healthy and limber) inducing and then landing a downplane. She ended up with a busted hip.

This was during the World POPS Meet 2012 @ Teuge NL, a good number of people saw her landing. I was on the landing field, filming accuracy, but they were dropping regular loads in between.

As I heard from the JM, she exited very stable on her back for her first freefall. She opened her main after the briefed 10 second delay, while still stable on her back.

By the time I saw her, she had a stable-looking side by side. She flew that for a while, then she started kicking. A LOT. Then the side by side turned into a downplane because she was steering with one toggle fully down. The canopies started turning slowly while downplaning. She landed like that.

Afterwards, she refused to go to the hospital right away, said her hip was just sore. She was in full-on defensive mode at that time, saing she should never have been allowed to freefall, she also said she was never taught how to exit properly or get stable (I gave her the FJC, she did well enough for at least 5 jumps to be allowed to freefall, and her first freefall briefing was done by the chief instructor). She also said she was never taught how to deal with a 2out.

She later said, Hey Saskia you told me to leave a side-by-side pretty much alone or else it might downplane, turns out you were right!

From looking at the video, we concluded the main opened with one riser around her arm. the main was flying stable enough surprisingly, I would have left well enough alone myself. She maintained she was unable to cuyaway because her right arm was stuck, so she just pulled silver. reserve opened in a side-by-side witha couple linetwists, which is why she was kicking so much under canopy. When she couldn't undo the twists, she grabbed a toggle with her free hand and just PULLED, thereby inducing the downplane (this is all on video). She landed like that, one toggle fully down for a 'flare'.

She landed sideways, presumably mostly on her hip.

Now I didn't do the debrief, and somewhat glad of it because I'm not sure where would have gone with this student. She DID pull her canopy on time.

I left this one to the chief instructor.

I think the video is on my computer at the DZ. Ï might be there next weekend but not this weekend.

I still remember them pulling the white sheet over my fellow jumper after I laid on his canopy so they could land the helicopter. I wondered, "did they do everything they could?" Days later the autopsy report showed the jumper died 5 different ways - meaning 5 independent injuries, each causing his death. The impact injuries were said to be hitting a brick wall between 60 - 80 or so MPH based on the injuries.

All I can say is - if you have a true downplane - cut away... Even if it is 30 feet above the ground, you are at least giving yourself a chance.

In 1 year in my home state three people died of downplanes (2004-2005) - two crew dogs, and one very experienced instructor.

And - remember this - your Cypres fires below 1000 feet (the primary cause of two outs) - you have very little time to handle the situation of the stress of a cypres fire and/or very low pull, and suddenly finding yourself in a spinning two out situation. Scary stuff. Stuff FJC instructors need to not skip over...